… The day after signing day, the day after Stevenson told Press-Register columnist Mike Herndon that Philon felt like “he had the world snatched from up under him” and alluded to a numbers crunch at Alabama, the Vigor coach made it clear he wasn’t about to clarify anything.

“What I said, I probably said prematurely,” Stevenson said.

OK. Now what’s his perspective on what happened?

“I don’t have a perspective,” he said.

On signing day, two of Philon’s teammates said Alabama had asked him to delay his enrollment until January, a practice known as grayshirting. One teammate said Alabama made that request last week.

If I was the principal of that school, I’d fire the coach for not looking out for my students. He’s employed by that school and he’s supposed to be an advocate of that school’s kids. He’s not supposed to be working for the University of Alabama’s football program or PR department.

That sounds like a coach who has been asked by the parents or principal to stay out of this, because it’s not his business. Philon’s a student at his school. If he’s been asked to respect the family’s privacy, then he HAS to.

Maybe the family doesn’t want Philon drawn into a pointless media war. Again, it’s really interesting to me that the family’s silent on this. That doesn’t exonerate Saban in the least, but it does say something about the family (correctly) distinguishing between the kid’s best interests and pounding a media drum. They’re not necessarily the same thing.

I did. We agree that someone between then and now asked him to cease and desist. We just disagree on the who.

“He’s not my kid” – I see two possible meanings.

1 – The coach is a tone-deaf callous a-hole. His quotes yesterday lead me to believe otherwise.
2 – The coach wants to talk, but he can’t, as in, “He’s not my kid, therefore I really don’t have a legal right to discuss it.” When I hear that phrase out of parents or educators, it’s usually a marker for frustration, as in, “(I want to do something here, but I can’t, because…) He’s not my kid.”

I am not defending Saban. But I think the media’s misplacing the outrage here. I don’t think they’re being fair to the Vigor coach.

Even if the parents did ask the coach not to talk about it, the coach could still say, I personally dont like the way that Alabama handled this situation and I dont think that their coaches are welcomed on our campus any more.

He could say and do that if he wanted to…he doesnt. He wants to stay in the good graces of the father almighty….

Keeping an Alabama (or an Auburn) from recruting at Vigor seems like a nonstarter

“I’ve been here nine years and had 125 kids go to college on scholarships and another 100 just go to college. They’ve been assets to their community rather than just hanging around.
Now, it’s the norm for athletes in this school to want to go to college.”

I was talking about his quotes about Darius feeling the rug pulled out from beneath him, etc. You can’t ignore those and home in on his observation that the signing limit played a role in this, too.

If the parents – or his AD – approached him and asked him to remain silent on this story, then he has an ethical obligation to, regardless of the legalities. And the legalities are not inconsequential here.

If I’m the parent here, I ask the kid what he wants to do, and I help him think through the pros and the cons. If he just wants the story to go away, then I call everyone involved and ask them, politely, to keep their traps shut, because ultimately, it’s his story, not theirs.

The coach can ignore me if he wants. And if he drops personal information in there, then I can lobby to get him fired. I’ve actually seen this happen, in slightly different circumstances.

Most of the high school coaches I know are good people, who spend a lot of time remembering horror stories about friends and colleagues who saw a career at a school go up in smoke over something stupid, pointless, and silly. Most of them are in it only for the kids, because for most of them, the pay sucks.

Given all these things, I think it likely – though I could be wrong – that the media’s angry at Nick and slapping the high school coach instead.

The frustration with Saban is guiding people’s interpretations of a writer’s interpretations/transcription of two conversations he had with a coach. I get the frustration. I’m just pointing out where that can lead things astray.

No – I’m looking at them both. I think the coach makes a misguided attempt to be “fair to both sides” in the comment that you use to turn him into a jerk. But it doesn’t matter what i think he may or may not have meant.

We don’t know enough to be calling him names and acting like what he said or didn’t say to a reporter that we know nothing about somehow amounts to some sort of crime.

Again, I’m missing something here. Let’s say you’re right and the parents asked the coach to put a lid on it (although I’m not sure why they’d care at this point, since the kid’s signed with Arkansas). That still doesn’t explain the coach’s mealy-mouthed response the day before.

His player got his world yanked out from under him at the last possible moment. I don’t know about you, but were I his coach being fair to both sides wouldn’t be my initial reaction.

Maybe you’re not reading some of the posts here. I don’t think I’m the one going overboard.

Fine, you know what the coach should have done and said, because you know all about the kid, the high school, the parents, the reporter in question, the principal, the school’s AD, and what Alabama told the kid and when. And since you know all that, you feel comfortable insinuating that he displayed some critical lack of backbone in the face of his fear of Nick Saban, because you also seem to know exactly why he failed to do the things that you would have done in a similar situation.

For my part, I see what high school coaches put up with on a day to day basis, and I always give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s a thankless job for the most part.

If I have to have first-hand knowledge of the context behind every quote I opine about, I might as well shut the blog down right now.

Speaking of what high school coaches put up with, how many other coaches have you seen react to something like this the way Philon’s coach did? Just compare his comments with those of Pritchett’s, for example. Or all the coaches who’ve complained about Spurrier’s high-handedness over the years.

I’m not expecting a HS coach to boycott a program over something like this. That’s not fair to other kids. But to have no reaction, or to try to balance the sides? And why do they need balancing anyway? Let’s put it this way – Saban looked a lot more satisfied on signing day than Philon did.

No argument on Philon and Saban. I just wish the story had stayed there instead of landing on the coach.

The coach is a non-factor in this story, and he’s limited in several ways by what he can and can’t say, especially to the media.

I’ve seen what some coaches say to the press, and it usually boggles my mind that they say so much. I’ve seen teachers reprimanded for letting personal information about students slip in private conversations, much less quotes to the press. Just because no one ever followed up on it in those situations doesn’t mean they didn’t expose themselves to some liability.

Maybe he does side with Saban on this. But I doubt it. If he did, he would have said so yesterday and more so today. But he’s refusing to talk at all, which tells me someone above him in the school or in the family asked him to bud out.

If I’m the coach I stick up for my players and the parents would thank me for it. If the parents wanted this guy to shut up it’s because they didn’t agree with what he was saying. It is simple really…..coach ain’t gonna criticize Saban no way no how.

It looks like the new rule has forced Saban to make his roster adjustments earlier and when the media spot light is still shining brightly on Tuscaloosa. It sucks for Taylor and Philon, but at least they were able to still find spots at SEC schools. Under the old system they find out in August when there aren’t any other options.

Nice. You’re all running around calling someone the worst names in the book and demanding that a guy be fired – all because he refuses to throw Saban under the bus, for reasons that none of you really know.

I love blogs, but this is the one area they get out of hand – taking ordinary people, making huge assumptions, and then demonizing them.

Can we reserve that crap for the politicians, who sign up for it knowing what they’re getting into?

Listen here, Mr. Blog Policeman, I didn’t call anyone a name (‘worst in the book’, or otherwise) or demand that anyone be fired. But I did feel rather “demonized” after I read your response.

I’ll tell you what I did do, however, and maybe you’ll read this a little more closely. I stated two possible reasons for why the coach acted the way he did. Are they impossibly outlandish? I don’t think so. Could there be other explanations that are more benign? Certainly. That’s why I asked for comments. But the sort of commentary I was hoping for is the sort that would come from someone who read and addressed what I said – not what someone else said.

You obviously disagree with me, and that’s fine. I assure you I’ll be able to sleep at night with that knowledge weighing so heavily on my chest. But at least pay attention. That’s all I ask.

A kid was offered a scholly. It was accepted. For months. The kid got hurt. No one took the scholly. Alabama got a commitment from a better healthier player and they called philon a week our and said you can’t sign. Philon has to sign elsewhere.

To do that to a kid is evil. What are we missing? He is a demon. Some people are willing to accept it because “the trains run on time.”

From the four span of 2007-2010, UGA signed 86 players (right at the roster limit). Auburn signed 119 players during the same period. Auburn averaged 30 per year, while we averaged 21. Auburn was able to sign more than 30% more players than UGA. Assuming 17% of signees eventually make All-SEC, Auburn had an extra 6 All-SEC players added to its roster during the 4 year period by the practice of over-signing.

Could this explain why Chizik, Malzahn, Saban, etc. seem like such great coaches the past few years and why Richt has seemingly been left behind as one of the elite coaches?

South Carolina has to cut 8 current players by the fall. GarnetandBlackAttack speculates today that it will most likely be redshirt seniors who are pushed out the door (based upon previous moves by Spurrier to trim the roster).

The liked article demonstrates how “roster management” works when done intelligently. Guys who already have their degrees but who are not going to play anyway are eased out the door to make way for new players who (1) might help the team down the road, and (2) might also be able to play immediately. Seniors who have their degrees can still transfer a la NCAA rules and play elsewhere immediately and pick up a grad degree in the process. That may also be the only way these guys would ever get to actually play in college football games anyway.

Quote Of The Day

“It's definitely different not knowing exactly who it's gonna be, but in a way, I feel like that's good,” he said. “One of my old coaches from Valdosta told me that competition is one of the best coaches. And I feel like, as well as each one of those three guys is performing, they're not gonna do anything but make each other better.” -- Jay Rome, The Red & Black, 3/25/15